Pages from the 1979 book "Kids' Stuff" by Linda Foa and Geri Brin.
Besides "Children's Spaces" by Norman McGrath (later) this is our favorite book about kids' design. If you judged Kids' Stuff by its crazy cover you'd probably never open it, but inside it's like a kid's version of High Tech, the 70's industrial-style home design sourcebook, with hundreds brilliantly designed things, like chairs, tables, lamps, storage, drawer pulls, tents, ropes... all photographed either on seamless, on a Superstudio-esque grid, or in the cool NYC apartments of the authors and their friends. One of my favorites is the table from Scandinavian Design (above), used as a changing table, and "actually billed as a writing desk by the manufacturer". The book's acknowledgements mention a heavy thanks to designer Joe D'Urso and design author Barbara Plumb, and it shows. Also it's a sourcebook itself, so it tells you what everything is, how much it cost, and where it was available. Everything that is except the incidental decor in the kids' rooms, notably this girl's ball-bearing based, plastic sphere-encased, self-levelling desk lamp (below).
